VC funding bounces back in Q2 as Uber and Snapchat net $5.3 billion

Uber and Snapchat were the big winners as investment by venture capital firms rose in the second quarter of 2016, accounting for nearly a third of total investment.

In total, from April to June, venture capitalists invested $15.3 billion in 961 deals, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

Uber raised $3.5 billion while Snapchat raised $1.8 billion, accounting for nearly a third of total investments.

The figure compared to $12.7 billion invested in 1,011 deals in the previous quarter, but the total amount of investment fell 12 percent year-on-year.

In line with the previous two quarters, software considered to receive the highest level of funding across all industries, receiving a total of $8.7 billion across 379 deals.

Uber’s investment came from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund at the beginning of June, which poured $3.5 billion into the company and drove its valuation up to $62.5 billion.

There are some signs that Uber may now look to debt rather than equity as a means of funding. In early July, it was reported that Uber had raised $1.15bn in the form of a leveraged loan in order to expand its operations globally. It will pay a yield of nearly 5 percent on the loan, which was arranged by Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs Group.

The loan takes the total amount raised by Uber when both debt and equity are included to more than $15bn.

Snapchat raised 1.8bn in a new round of funding in May, with new investors including Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic and T Rowe Price, as well as participation from existing investors in the round. Existing investors in Snapchat included Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark, Alibaba, Yahoo, and fund manager Fidelity.